Mapping Memory by National Museums Liverpool

Custom House

Vincent Hessey

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Transcript for Vincent Hessey

It was old Custom House and it was bombed during the war. Now I remember us playing in there and we used to call it the Dungeons when we were kids, we’d only be about seven or eight. I was born in 1949 so it’s like four years after the last war. Growing up in the early years of the 1950s it was quite fascinating because Liverpool wasn’t like it was today; we’ve seen all of the infrastructure coming up but we were left. We had a big building programme probably during the 1960s and then didn’t see anything until all this new lot came on board a few years ago. we used to play in the Dungeons... it was derelict, it was bombed, a bombed building and we just played war games. You know like kids go on computers and play war games, well we actually did it. My grandfather came from Prussia before the First World War so because of my name I got to play the Nazi. It’s amazing isn’t it? ‘Oh, you can be the German because you bombed our chippy’ they used to say. It was amazing. Thinking back you’d think it was being quite prejudiced towards you and I guess it was in one sense but as kids it was just harmless fun.